What Is Genre?

". . . I think that as soon as a genre is given a name, or once it's identified and becomes recursive or self-aware, once those things happen, it dies. . . . Encased in genre we become what's expected . . .

"We use the word [genre], I think, to refer to a certain familiarity, or pre-conceived set of expectations - something the reader brings to the text. What the writer does from there, how they manipulate those expectations, is the fun part."

- David Peak and Ben Spivey, editors of Blue Square Press, interviewed by Joyelle McSweeney at Montevidayo.

Positive Review of _Things Come On_ in The Washington Times (!)

Honest to god - check it out. When the publicist for Wesleyan told me they were reviewing it, I braced myself. But never a good idea to prejudge periodicals or people.

Martin Rubin, the reviewer, is very generous, but extremely eloquent, insightful, and specific. I am o'erwhelmed. I am very grateful for the attention, not to mention the kind words.

He does take me to task a bit (albeit politely) for the less-than-glowing portrayal of Richard M. Nixon. Fair enough. Everything in the book is working on two levels: the political/historical and the emotional/biographical. So sometimes a Nixon is more than a Nixon. "Nixon for us had always been the cancer, the cancerer," I wrote at one point. The "for us" (meaning my family) is crucial in that statement - I was pre-disposed to overdetermine him. The fact that the extent of his and his associates' malfeasance appeared during the worst period of my life did nothing to counter-act that predisposition.

The cover-up of Watergate and the cover-up of breast cancer is a much more telling analogy/homology for me than Dean's "cancer on the presidency" bit. And there's really something about Nixon's potty mouth, as revealed in the tapes, that jibes with the filth and indignity of dying from cancer in the early 70s (or before). As someone (I forget who) once put it - "he is the Id" (the RMN on the tapes, not the one in public). It's not just that he uses the F-bomb a lot, but that he uses it transitively to refer to his enemies. It was almost like someone's medula oblongata had its hand on the Button for at least a few months there.

Having said that, the Constitution's the Constitution, and I'm fer it. If you try to subvert it - whether you're using the CIA and IRS as your personal political secret police force, or you're trying to pack the Supreme Court with your cronies - I'm agin' it.

I also should say that I happen to agree with Rubin's negative assessment of much "experimental" writing, in the first paragraph - that it is stale and predictable. Which depresses me, since I like experimental writing in general - and much of it is fresh and surprising. I don't necessarily think that it's bad to innovate for the hell of it - to see what happens. If it doesn't work, move on (or maybe if it does work, move on - like Oulipo). But it's true that a lot of experimental writing isn't. It's simply hewing to a different convention than "mainstream" or "academic" or "confessional" poetry - a type of writing that I tend to find even more boring than the most precious and formulaic "experimental" work. Which is to say that familiarity breeds contempt in literature no less than other spheres of experience.

Fortunately, there are writers who are smart, know their theory, understand the ideological stakes, but who still let the radio signals through, no matter what they say. That's why god gave us revision - to give the left side of our brain something to do after the first draft.

Recently Received (or, Look How Behind I Am on My Reading!)

Aitkin, Adam. Tonto's Revenge. TinFish Retro Chaps #2.
Briante, Susan. Utopia Minus. Ahsahta.
Collis, Stephen. On the Material. Talonbooks.
Friedlander, Ben. The Missing Occasion of Saying Yes. Subpress.
Hawkey, Christian. Ventrakl. Ugly Duckling.
Johnson, Ronald. RADI OS. Flood.
-----------------. The Shrubberies. Flood.
-----------------. To Do As Adam Did. Talisman.
Lavender-Smith, Evan. From Old Notebooks. BlazeVox.
Osman, Jena. The Network. Fence.
Singer, Sean. Discography. Yale UP.

If I have omitted your book, please feel free to comp me  : )

On Goro Takano's _With One More Step Ahead_

Now that it is officially almost summer, I'm back at it - with my first "book description" of the new season. But how to describe With One More Step Ahead, by Goro Takano? It is certainly a charmingly weird book - a novel with a bibliography, which is addressed telepathically in English to a group of girls in Hawai'i by a Japanese woman or girl named Lulu who may have senile dementia or schizophrenia or may not, but who is under restraint of some kind, who purports to be "translating" the memoir of a paraplegic man from whom the girls in Hawai'i serve as amanuenses as he composes his musical scores by moving his eyeballs this way or that. With me so far? No? Me neither. But there's never a dull moment. "Mr. Onishi," the protagonist (?), is a sensationalist TV reporter turned English grad student (not unlike Takano himself) who becomes involved with a group called the Banyan Tree Society, which promotes world harmony via sexual intercourse. As the story unfolds, it appears there is more than one Lulu and multiple Onishi's - one Lulu will look to Onishi like his ex-wife, or vice-versa, for instance. Every so often, someone - Lulu? Onishi? Takano? An unnamed omniscient narrator? says:

    "Wait a minute.
     This is a goddamn lie. This should be a goddamn illusion.
     My life should not be like this.
     This should be somebody else's life.
     Somewhere, without my permission, somebody is revising my life. Rewriting my life. Translating my life into something else. Exchanging my life with somebody else's."

A lot of "edgy" novels these days aren't. But this is novel writing that hasn't forgotten John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, Alain Robbe-Grillet, et al. It's narrative as carnival - and Takano is the master of digressions within digressions and flashback within flash-forward. The novel includes legends, a story-board, an essay on Dostoyevski's The Idiot, poems, and travelogue. It is a satire, in the sense of satura lanx, full plate. The fare most often has to do with Japanese history and contemporary Japanese culture, but it's also about (post)modernity writ large - the nature of subjectivity in a digital for-profit environment.

Appropriately enough, the English prose here is peppered with instances of non-native-speaker-type usages - such as the recurrent use of "cocksure" to mean "to be very certain." Given that the author possesses a PhD in English, one suspects that these are more or less intentional, and they give the texture of the novel a strangely manic quality - like a poorly-dubbed samuai movie that turns into a psychological thriller/comedy.

OK - that's the best I can do. This book is proof positive of Croce's dictum that every work of art is a unique aesthetic phenomenon.

"It Is Finished . . ."

. . . grading, I mean - and, by extension, The Semester that Would Not Die. But better not say that too loudly (knock wood).

Those of you who have been stuck in "The Back" cupping your ears during readings at the Raven Bookstore in Lawrence will be happy to know that a new sound system is on its way. The amp is 10x more powerful than the cheapo one you've come to know and hate.

Speaking of which: please put June 16 on your calendar, when poet Sonnet L’Abbé (from Toronto via Vancouver) will be visiting our fair burg and reading aloud to us, along with local image+text artist+writer Karen Ohnesorge. If you haven't read Sonnet's stuff, you should - esp. her book Killarnoe. (I love writers who are hard to "pin down.")  If you haven't read Karen's work, you should come hear her read and then tell her to publish more of it  : )

Also don't miss Big Tent in June (Th. 23) w/ Louise Krug, reading from her hilarious & cheeky forthcoming memoir; Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg; and, of course, everyone's favorite: T. B. Announced.

In other news, just saw an orchard oriole outside my bedroom window.

The sun is finally coming out.

I can breathe.

Reviews 'n' Such

My book, Things Come On, was reviewed in the UK's Stride Magazine. I don't know that I agree that one "would need a doctorate in twentieth century American politics with a specialism [specialism?] in Watergate to really understand the text," but I can see how the allusions might be offputting or irrlevant to readers outside the U.S.  Fortunately, the reviewer concludes that "the emotional tragedy of his mother's death born out [sic] through Harrington's subtle mix of genres and language will connect with all readers."

Also, many thanks to Dennis Etzel, Jr., for the kind comments on his blog, Radius.

Yesterday was the last day of classes (seriously). So I hope to be devoting more time to the blog soon. Stay tooned. There are a number of topics upon which I wish to hold forth - I'm saving them up.

Heard a great reading by the Latino Writers Collective last night - followed by the revolutionary hip-hop stylings of Rebel Diaz. Great evening.

In other news - I noticed that Rachel Blau DuPlessis' reading at KU is now up on PennSound, thanks to Ben Cartwright. I introduced Rachel and read "Draft 105: Pilgrimage" with her (poorly, from the sound of it).

"One More Reason to Read Out"

"As you read out, you begin to develop a reading persona, and that persona begins to influence what kinds of poems you write. It focuses you. Also, you should practice reading out because it helps you develop a range, and it helps you break from the isolationism of just you and the page. Reading out helps you begin to address your audience, your readers, as a whole, full person and as an artist - a poet, a writer - with voice and depth and personality and pluck and dramatic energy. To overstate matters, through this process you become someone."

- Kevin Rabas, Emporia, Kansas, 21 April 2011

I had a great time "reading out" at Emporia State on Earth Day/Good Friday. The students said that seeing Things Come On and hearing me talk about it had "opened a door" for them - showing them that what they write - even a book of their writing - needn't be all one form or another - or even one genre or another. So: it doesn't get any better than that. Had some other great conversations, too, e.g., about "Uncle" Walt Mason, Emporia's own newspaper poet extraordinaire.

Check out Kevin Rabas' new short-short story collection, Spider Face, from Otoliths. It's swell!

Portal del Sol published an essay of mine, on "Genre and Power." And The Rumpus closed out National Poetry Month with my poem "Out of Office Reply." Thanks, Callista! Thanks, Brian!

S**t-fire - my poems turned up on the Academy of American Poets web site!

The Rumpus has posted the "live chat" that I had w/members of its book club. I did another one w/Ronda Miller, the blogista literaria for our local paper, at the Lawrence Journal-World blog.

Thanks to all who came to the reading at Jayhawk Ink Bookstore yesterday - great questions - made me think for a change!

I Google Myself

Sunday evening at 7 CDT, I'm doing my first "live chat" ever - for the Rumpus Book Club, with Camille Dungy and Brian Spears. Any advice about doing these things is most welcome.

I finally made it to the Academy of American Poets. Well, the web site anyway.

Do check out those other new titles from Wesleyan. I'm saying that, not just to be a team player, but b/c I've read them all, and they all really do reward one's attention - in very different ways. And I'm already looking forward to the next Notley and Gizzi -

I also made it into Ron Silliman's blog as "Other," which is what I've been all along.